


your soul is blowing apart

by magnificentmoose



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 00:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15874572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificentmoose/pseuds/magnificentmoose
Summary: What is the difference between an internist, a surgeon, and a pathologist?The internist knows everything and does nothing. The surgeon knows nothing and does everything. The pathologist knows everything and does everything, but a day too late.





	your soul is blowing apart

**Author's Note:**

> For the WonderfulxStrange fanworks exchange!
> 
> Written for sulahns who prompted: Albert/Cooper, canon divergence!AU. Hurt/Comfort in which Albert helps Cooper rebuild his life after the fallout of season two. 
> 
> Title is taken from Anne Carson's Antigonick.

It is nine o’clock in the Philly office and Albert is already on his third cup of milky coffee when the telephone rings.

“SHERIFF TRUMAN ON THE LINE, ALBERT,” says Gordon across the office. “IT’S ABOUT COOP.” He holds out the long cord of the telephone and Albert crosses the short space between their desks.

The first thing he asks is whether Cooper is alive because damn it to hell, he doesn’t give a fig about the quizzical expression Gordon is giving him right now. He’s been on edge ever since he returned from Twin Peaks and it feels like all the tension is coiled in between his third and sixth thoracic vertebrae.

Harry sounds rather contrite over the phone, but his voice is low and steady. Albert swears that he can hear thunder in the background. “He’s alive, Albert, but there’s something not quite right. Doc’s looked him over and there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with him inwardly.”

“What do you mean, inwardly?” He doesn’t realize he’s gripping the phone so tightly until an exposed wire from the cord digs into his palm and a pinprick of blood wells to the surface. Fuck. He grabs a handful of tissues from Cooper’s empty desk and presses it tightly against the scratch.

“His hair’s gone white,” and Harry’s voice loses some of its evenness. The memory of Cooper cradling a dying Leland Palmer in a deluged Pietà streaks across his vision.

“BOB?” he asks hoarsely.

“No, it’s Cooper alright. Except he doesn’t seem to want to talk to anyone, so I called here.”

Albert must have blanched or turned into a lorikeet or done something equally absurd because Gordon motions for the phone. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” he tells Harry and then hangs up. Gordon gives him an expression that makes him look like a confused parrot.

“BETTER CHECK IN WITH DIANE BEFORE YOU LEAVE, ALBERT. SHE MIGHT HAVE SOME MORE OF THOSE TAPES. BETTER TAKE AN UMBRELLA: FORECAST DOESN’T LOOK TOO GOOD EITHER.”

Albert quiets his scalpel tongue. “Just my luck. It’ll be raining Ragdolls and Rottweilers in Washington.”

Gordon calls out to him about a freak tornado in Delaware as he’s leaving, but he’s out the door before he can hear how much farm equipment was destroyed.

Maybe his poker face isn’t as good as he thinks it is, but heaven forbid that a pathologist be concerned about his colleague who he definitely hasn’t been sleeping with for over two years. Twin Peaks is a veritable bouquet of blue roses and the thorns are digging in deep.

Albert is a consummate professional: he isn’t going to lose his grip when his partner had vanished into the ether in some feat of metaphysical derring-do. He’s seen the way Sam Stanley had fallen apart when Agent Desmond had vanished: a choked off hydra scream that had only grown louder and more vicious over time. Would he bleed for Cooper?

Cooper hadn’t called for Sam: he’d wanted Albert, and he was going to do his job and pick up the goddamn pieces. And just like that, as he boards the late afternoon flight towards Seattle, the old medical school joke comes crawling out of his brain.

What is the difference between an internist, a surgeon, and a pathologist?

_The internist knows everything and does nothing. The surgeon knows nothing and does everything. The pathologist knows everything and does everything, but a day too late._

Maybe the FBI isn’t a hospital, but there’s a prickling sensation at the back of Albert’s brain that believes that Gordon keeps all the cards close to his chest and lets Cooper charge forth with no safety net. Where would Diane fit in this equation? He doesn’t finish the analogy in his head, but between the thin blanket and packet of over-salted peanuts, there isn’t too much to distract him. The punch line keeps playing over in his head like a litany. Cooper had taken one step over the edge and fallen right in, and here Albert was coming to investigate the charred corpse. _A day too late_ , his mind supplies and pulls him into unwanted sleep.

When he wakes, the endless joke has been replaced by a migraine. He hadn’t had a problem with them until he’d started at the FBI, as stiffs aren’t exactly great conversational partners. The occupational hazard of working with Gordon Cole meant that Albert had started seeing a neurologist and discovered that loud noises were a definite trigger for a pounding skull. Bully for him.

Once he’s off the plane, he makes two telephone calls: one to the Philly office (Gordon’s voice mailbox is full) and the other to the number that Harry had given him. Then he buys himself two packs of cigarettes and gets in the rented car and drives.

At least Cooper is alive, he tells himself, on the two-hour long trip up to the Great Northern. There is a large green umbrella sitting next to his medical bag and trench in the backseat of a rental car. If this were film noir, he imagines he would have a fedora as well and some sort of dame waiting for him in a backwater burg. Except Cooper is more of a Humphrey Bogart sort of character than Albert could ever be. Cooper had once called him the Cosmo Brown to his Don Lockwood. An ironic comparison, because he can’t dance, and if he hates one genre of film the most, it is the movie musical.

And wasn’t it odd that on what Cooper calls and Albert vehemently denies as being their first date, they had gone to see one? It was in the early days of their working relationship, and Cooper had dragged him to go see a midnight showing of _Yentl_ in the dingy old movie palace over on Walnut.

“Isn’t it better to be out of the morgue? Besides, I think you’ll like this: it’s part of a series on contemporary Jewish film,” explained Cooper while they were in the concessions line so that he could buy the largest bucket of popcorn possible. “ _They’re showing Fiddler on the Roof next week._ ”

“If I wanted to see a bunch of Jews singing, I’d just go to temple on Saturday.”

Sitting at the back of the theater with Cooper while Barbra Streisand and Mandy Patinkin made googly eyes at each other over sections of the Talmud wasn’t half as bad as he had thought it would be. The worst part was realizing that he actually liked Cooper’s cheery mannerisms and wasn’t he just paddling up the Schuylkill River in a leaking scull? About halfway through the movie, he had the burning sensation of wanting to push his partner up against a wall and kiss him until his perfectly shellacked hair fell apart under his hands.

Truly a terrible idea. Naturally, it had taken four more late night excursions, six more buckets of popcorn, and one slow kiss on sleek pavement before Albert knew that he was well and truly a goner. Afterward, they’d gone to Albert’s apartment and Cooper hadn’t commented on the mezuzah on the door frame (his grandma’s) or the framed poster of Eakins’ _Gross Clinic_ (a gift from an ex-lover) and so Albert had kissed him again.

There had been an ease to their relationships after that, as easy as that could be between the two of them. Being with Cooper was like trying to talk to a large and friendly swarm of bumblebees in the shape of a man. There was something deep and humming in him, a low and soothing vibration that never seemed to stop. The problem was that in Twin Peaks, that frequency had changed; like someone kept fiddling with the dials on an old radio.

A day too late. A week too late. A lifetime too late. Truly a terrible idea.

By the time Albert finishes one of the packs, it has started to rain and become altogether too green, like a faded alien planet glimpsed on the cover of an old pulp. The Great Northern looms ahead like the atrocity committed against architecture that it is. The next time that he sees Benjamin Horne, he intends to tell him so in no uncertain terms.

Standing at the entrance to the hotel is a mountain of plaid that can only be Harry S. Truman. The sheriff’s hair is curling wildly in the rain and he extends one hand to him in greeting. There is a thin smile tracing his lips that quickly resolves into something far more somber. They’re miles away from either fisticuffs or affection, but there is an air of lingering tension that settles like dust in the space between them. The thing that has been holding them together has been Cooper and now they both are a little at odds about what to do.

“He’s in the same room?” he asks Harry, following on step behind the gentle slope of the sheriff’s back.

“Same room as always.”

“You would think if someone got shot, the least the management could do would be to put him up in a different room. Will wonders ever cease?”

Harry doesn’t reply, so either something is deadly wrong or he is in agreement. Albert hopes it’s the latter. The hotel is too quiet and through the windows, Albert can see a thick mist forming over the falls.

Harry performs a quick percussion of raps on number 315 and there is a muffled response. There’s a shuffling sound, the catch of lock being unhooked, and a pale face becomes visible. Cooper.

He’s wearing the blue pajamas that Albert had gotten him as a holiday present, but the only color Albert has eyes for is the new shock of white hair like a brand. There are deep circles under his eyes.

“Albert.” His gaze is unsteady, switching quickly from Albert’s face to a place above his head.

“Hey, Coop,” and the greeting comes out too soft. “Mind if we come in, or would you rather we dance the tango on your doorstep? I saw roses in the lobby.”

The door opens, but Harry stands back and nods his head at him to go on in. Right, he is the one who’s supposed to get answers and shake Cooper from whatever funk he’s in. Albert furrows his brows without retort and enters.

The room had never seemed to be that large before, but in the light of the storm, it feels almost cavernous. Albert feels like he’s been entombed in a tree. It is a miracle that this hotel hasn’t burned to the ground yet. At the center of everything is Cooper, his legs drawn up to his chest on top of the blankets exposing a pair of lumpy pink cable knit socks. He takes a seat next to him.

“I’m not sure that bleached hair is going to be a runway staple this Fall, but then again I don’t think most designers are hanging around out here. Not to mention the socks.”

Cooper gives him a wan smile. “They’re very warm. It was a gift from Lucy. She says she’s going to try making me a sweater next. ”

“I don’t think that when sheep donated their wool for the ancient art of knitting, they were quite anticipating Ms. Moran’s handiwork. Cooper, are you going to tell me what happened with Earle?”

“He’s not coming back. Whatever was in the Lodge devoured him like kindling.” A roll of the shoulders, a tilt of the head. Talking isn’t really on the agenda, but he wonders if he’s gotten out any more words out of him than Harry did. He wonders when the veneer of normalcy will fall away.

Albert wants to ask him a couple hundred questions, but he holds his tongue. He’s seen Cooper like this before and it had taken a few days of coaxing to get him back on his feet. It’s going to take more than an afternoon to dissect the very particular anatomy of Dale Cooper. He lays a hand on his partner’s back and is greeted by warmth.

“‘Inwardly,’ my ass. Christ Coop, do you have a fever as well?” Cooper lets out a noise that’s halfway between a hum and a sigh and lays his head on Albert’s shoulder. He can feel the tension slowing beginning to leach out of him.

A quiet falls over the room for a few moments before Cooper sits up. “Albert, would you be so kind as to accompany to the waterfall? Hawk told me that there’s a sort of bioluminescent moss that grows down there and I haven’t had a chance to investigate it yet”

“Coop, it’s raining. Please don’t make me have to explain to Gordon why his best field agent broke his leg while sightseeing.”

“You’ll be there to make sure I don’t lose my step.”

“Okay. Fine.” The smile Cooper gives him this time is wide and is accompanied by a brush of lips to his forehead. This sentimental sap thinks he can persuade Albert with tenderness and he is absolutely right.

Still, he takes Cooper’s temperature because he knows how to do his goddamn job.

The rainstorm has quieted to a gentle spattering and since his thermometer indicates no fever, he chaperones Coop on the long walk down to the wide lip of the falls, rocky and hazardous. Cooper throws his trench coat over his pajamas and Albert’s is damp from his walk from the car to the hotel, so it’s just him in his plane rumpled suit and tie.

Cooper is bent double examining the stones, not minding the spray of water. “Did you know that during the first world war, a surgeon found a way of using moss bandages as a means to prevent sepsis?”

A cigarette dangles from Albert’s mouth unlit. “Is this your way of telling me that you are related to one of those prehistoric men they dug up from a bog?”

“You’re a doctor.” It almost sounds like a question.

“I’m more in the business of disassembling. Is there a reason we’re down here, Coop?” The moss seems perfectly ordinary and the only thing that is remotely glowing is his partner’s hair.

Cooper stands and walks back towards him and under the cover of the umbrella. He notices Albert’s unlit cigarette and fishes for something in his coat pocket. He pulls out a box of matches with ‘Great Northern’ stamped on the cover. Quietly, he strikes one and cups his hands around the cigarette as Albert inhales the welcome nicotine into his lungs. Cooper doesn’t move to extinguish the flame, instead holding the match in his hand and watching the little fire inch closer and closer to his fingers.

The smoke drifts up towards the bright windows of the hotel where he can make out a number of silhouettes in the yellow light. Two bright spots in an otherwise settled haze.

“Albert?”

“Hmm.”

“I’m not sure if I could begin to explain what happened. It was like being caught in a forest fire, but I couldn’t run away without being trapped. Gordon’s going to have questions and I’m not sure I have the answers he wants.”

“Fuck Gordon.” Albert takes a drag on his cigarette and does his best not to smile when Cooper’s eyebrows look like they’re going to blast off towards the moon. “If the Bureau doesn’t give you paid leave for your little voyage to some nightmarish plane of evil, I’ll riot.”

Cooper huffs out a small laugh. It isn’t much of a laugh at all because there are fat tears running down Cooper’s ashen cheeks and he practically collapses into Albert’s arms with a sob. He’s at a loss of what to do with his cigarette and pinches the ends close and places it in his pocket. A line from a movie he saw long ago with Cooper comes to mind: _the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts_.

It damn well hurts, but that’s not the problem. Cooper is falling apart in front of him and that takes priority over any discomfort he might have. He would bleed or burn or bruise for Cooper and that should probably distress him more, but it’s not about him.

He’s not sure how long he stands supporting Cooper, but at some point, he starts rubbing small circles into his back. Cooper’s white hair is soft under his chin and he presses his lips to it.

“When we return to Philadelphia,” Cooper eventually says, disentangling himself from Albert’s embrace, “there’s a place I would like to show you. When I was at Haverford, there was this duck pond that the students used to gather around after classes and throw crumbs from their sandwiches. The cherry trees should be blooming by now.”

“Sure, Coop.” He’d take a dose of suburban college misery over the Pacific Northwest any day.

“Albert, what happened to your cigarette?” Cooper has taken his left hand within his grip and is examining his fingers when he finds the shiny patch of skin where he had pinched the paper closed.

“It was either this or you berating me for littering. There’s no ashtray in the middle of this water wonderland,” and he shuts up because Cooper’s cool lips are on the burn and it feels far too intimate a gesture for this place. 

“I suppose we better be heading back up. Harry’s started worrying about us, no doubt.”

Albert shakes his head in partial disbelief at the contradictions of the man in front of him. “Yeah. Okay.” He puts a hand on Coop’s shoulder, a more tender approximation of their meeting in the hotel room.

Cooper gives him a small smile. Together, under the green umbrella, they begin to make their way back up to the hotel.

 

** 

 

Perhaps it is all for the best that Albert doesn’t have to quit his job. Gordon takes one look at Cooper’s white hair and gives him two weeks paid leave. He also decides that his best pathologist would be better off babysitting his questionably stable partner rather than sitting on his ass in the lab.

So here they are in the middle of the afternoon at Cooper’s duck pond, looking to all the world like a couple of alumni coming back to look at their old haunts. Coop’s dug out an faded navy Haverford emblazoned hoodie that is too large for him and has thumb holes cut out in the sleeves. Even with the hair, he still manages to look like a fresh-faced boy scout. He’s been smiling since they drove through the gates.

At Cooper’s insistence, they picked up cheesesteaks at some mom and pop restaurant in Bala Cynwyd and there is so much grease that Albert is physically repulsed. At least the bench that they’re sitting on doesn’t hurt his back.

“You want the rest of this?” He holds out the sandwich and his question is punctuated by a loud call from a goose. He wants to tell the bird to fuck off, but he holds his tongue. He’s been doing that a lot since Twin Peaks and it is a little disquieting.

Cooper shakes his head and lets out a sigh. “In the matters of art where the melding of meat, cheese, and grease are considered, I know when I’ve been defeated.” 

“Ever considered a second career as a restaurant critic?”

That gets him a laugh. “There are a lot of things I’d have to do first before that would happen. I didn’t realize how much I had missed this place. Thank you for coming here with me, Albert.”

The late afternoon sun through the trees dapples Cooper’s face and makes him look a little too unreal. A mirage or a ghost or a phantasm, if Albert believed in any of those things. So he moves closer to confirm his partner’s physical existence and wraps an arm across his shoulders. The flesh is solid and warm.

“I heard from Harry yesterday.”

“I know, Coop. You were on the phone with him for an hour.”

“I wanted to apologize. He didn’t absolve me of anything, Albert. He just said he understood and wanted to have my address so Lucy could send me the sweater she’s been knitting.”

“You can’t be expected to apologize for Gordon and his idea of what is a reasonable hour for a flight.” 

“I didn’t mean for leaving Twin Peaks. I’m still having nightmares about being stuck there.” When Cooper says ‘there,’ Albert is pretty sure that he doesn’t mean the podunk town.

“You can’t apologize for trying to bring justice to a dead girl,” he says with some finality.

“Three. Three dead girls.”

“Hate to break it to you Coop, but you’re only one agent and a very good one at that, but sometimes the world throws something at you that can’t be solved even via psychic mumbo jumbo. Blue Rose doesn’t mean cowardice. At least you didn’t disappear like everyone else.” 

Cooper doesn’t reply to his impromptu speech and instead leans into Albert’s touch. Albert wonders what they look like from behind: probably a couple of old fogeys with too much time on their hands. There aren’t any students around, so Albert places a kiss against Cooper’s temple. 

“Well, seeing as we’ve got most of my sandwich left, why don’t we let the fowl partake?”

Cooper stands and walks over to the wooden railing, where a cluster of brown and yellow ducklings have gathered and are peering up at him with wide eyes. Albert goes to stand next to him and passes him half of the sandwich. And they stand in silence throwing pieces of bread into the water and watching as the birds dive in and out.

**Author's Note:**

> It was a delight to finally get to write for this fandom and attempt to imagine a kinder ending for these two. It has been a year since the final episode of "The Return" and I am still reeling. Many grateful thanks go to MH who poked and prodded this into something more manageable.
> 
> As always, any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you for reading! x


End file.
